Paul has a rather fabulous plan about what to do with his tunnel once he’s completed it. He’s says he’s finally going to build his great grandfather’s invention called ‘The Telectroscope’ which is, as far as I can tell, a mythical steam-punky machine for looking down big tunnels and seeing the people and places at the other end, just if they were standing right in front of you.
I love his tall - or rather 'deep' - story (see Tiscali news), and something about the way he tells it makes me long for it to be true. So rather than simply dismiss it, I’ve decided to blog it. If you have anything to add about tunnels, Telectroscopes or Paul St George, let me know.
I was amused that Paul decided to release details of his project on 1st April - that'll put most people off the scent until it's ready. Over the past few years I've been marginally involved in the historical optical research (re: his grandfather's original Telectroscope), and it's great news that he found sponsorship, and that the tunnel is now nearly ready. That's not to say I'm convinced it'll definitely work - his 'truth & lies' notebook has quite a lot of bad interferometry information copied into it, but if he's sorted out the myth from the reality, it could just produce the required result.
Stephen Herbert (Optical Media Historian)
Posted by: Stephen Herbert | April 02, 2008 at 05:47 PM
Yes- Steve Herbert's information is most important. But Steve might be quite unaware or forgotten that this was later muted to be a twin tunnel scheme, so that the rsults could be seen in glorious Stereoscopic 3D.
David Burder (3-D Historian).
Posted by: david burder | April 02, 2008 at 08:49 PM
Wow Stephen, tell us more. What do you know about his grandfather?
Posted by: Paul St George | April 04, 2008 at 08:03 PM
Not many people know this but Alexander Stanhope St George put an intentional error into his draft Patent application. The red herring is the Selenium. He did this to 'watermark' anyone who tried to copy his invention. Anyone who copied without sufficient knowledge would keep the error in their text. You will see from the various false versions of the Telectroscope invention that the others all refer to Selenium and that all there so called inventions would not work. (For more on selenium proposals for distant vision apparatus, see my 3-vol "A History of Early Television" (Routledge 2000)).
Re: David Burder's note - it's doubtful whether the extra expense of a double tunnel would have been viable. There is some evidence that Theodore Brown later tried something similar between Salisbury and Bournemouth (using his stereophotoduplicon -for details of which see my 1997 biography "Theodore Brown's Magic Pictures"), but sadly (as always) Theo ran out of funds.
SH
Posted by: Stephen Herbert | April 04, 2008 at 08:55 PM
P.S.
Sorry - that should have been "...all their so-called inventions..."
Has the exact location of the London end of the tunnel been determined yet?
SH
Posted by: Stephen Herbert | April 04, 2008 at 08:59 PM